Whiteout party increases yet again as cost of first-round celebrations revealed

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This article was published 26/04/2018 (2900 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Winnipeg’s hockey spirit apparently knows no financial bounds as representatives from the City of Winnipeg, True North Sports and Entertainment and Economic Development Winnipeg weren’t prepared Thursday to publicly set a limit on spending for playoff street parties.

The three groups gathered at Bell MTS Place to announce further expansion of the whiteout street party, which will now flow onto Smith Street and further east down Graham Avenue toward Garry Street.

An estimated 35,000 fans took in the first round of downtown bashes and the new configuration should have room to accomodate 20,000 more.

True North, Economic Development Winnipeg and the city spent a combined $394,000 on whiteout festivities during the first three home games the Winnipeg Jets played against the Minnesota Wild. True North footed most of the bill, $226,000, covering event planning and production costs, like fencing, licensing, stages, televisions and electrical servicing.

The city pitched in $140,000 from existing budgets, covering extra policing and transit services, plus “cross-departmental logistics,” according to chief corporate services officer Michael Jack.

“What we’ve asked all of our senior management to do, particularly our director of transit and the police chief … we’ve asked them to do what they can within their budgets, to work within their budgets to accommodate the extra resources needed,” Jack told reporters.

“Should down the road it become clear that the expense was so significant that we need to go back to council to ask for something different, then we will. But for now, they’ve been directed to work within what they’ve got.”

Jack also said the city is “not working within any particular cap” in terms of funding for the street parties, but “if costs balloon in a way that we didn’t foresee or expect, that’d be something that we’d deal with.”

Economic Development Winnipeg paid $28,000 during the first round of playoffs to cover street closures, barricades and other permits.

None of the groups could say Thursday how much more money they have earmarked for future playoff parties, including the second round series against the Nashville Predators that starts Friday. Depending how far the Jets advance, the total could balloon by hundreds of thousands.

Mayor Brian Bowman has also committed $120,000 from his civic initiatives fund ($503,000 set aside this year for community projects and doled out by the mayor) to Economic Development Winnipeg to support the whiteout parties for the duration of the Jets’ post-game season.

Dayna Spiring, president and CEO of Economic Development Winnipeg, said the earned media from the whiteout parties already values over $950,000, according to tracking done by her group.

“North America is talking about Winnipeg and they’re talking about the energy and the excitement that is in Winnipeg. And the citizens of Winnipeg have showed us how much this event means to them and we’re really happy to be amping it up for round two,” she said.

For Spiring, spending more on the street parties pays off in the long run when trying to recruit conferences or events to Winnipeg.

“The first part of every pitch I have to make is selling Winnipeg and these parties are doing that for me. So to me, the costs are very minimal compared to the benefit that we’re seeing,” she said.

Kevin Donnelly, senior vice-president of venues and entertainment for True North, detailed some of the tweaks for round two, which include a “monstruous video screen” that’s being installed on the eastern end of Graham Ave. It measures about 11 metres wide by nearly seven metres tall and will be set up about four metres off the ground to ensure the best viewing experience yet for fans on the street.

“So this will be a dramatic improvement for people that will be coming to watch the action from further away, from further down the road,” Donnelly said, noting there will also be “more toilets, more fence, more police, more staff, more everything.”

“So I think at the end of the day, as we grow – the party, the expense, the size – continues to grow with it,” he said.

Ten dollar tickets are also on sale for viewing parties inside Bell MTS Place during Jets’ away games in Nashville. The proceeds will benefit the True North Youth Foundation.

Rob Wozny, a spokeperson for True North, said 1,000 pre-sale tickets for Games 3 and 4, respectively, were offered to Jets’ email subscribers on Thursday ahead of general Ticketmaster sales, which open at 10 a.m. Friday. He couldn’t say how many had sold by end of day.

“We won’t know approximate number of tickets left over until we get closer to the general on-sale tomorrow at 10 a.m., but whatever we have left will go quickly,” Wozny said by email. “However, that doesn’t mean fans are entirely shut out as tickets can and often do get released leading up to game day. We encourage fans to visit winnipegjets.com/tickets for tickets.”

jessica.botelho@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @_jessbu